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Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science

STACS 2003: STACS 2003 pp 179–190Cite as

Fast Algorithms for Extended Regular Expression Matching and Searching

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2607))

Abstract

Extended regular expressions are an extension of ordinary regular expressions by the operations of intersection and complement. We give new algorithms for extended regular expression matching and searching which improve significantly the (very old) best upper bound for this problem, due to Hopcroft and Ullman. For an extended regular expression of size m with p intersection and complement operators and an input word of length n our algorithms run in time O(mn2) and space O(pn2) while the one of Hopcroft and Ullman runs in time O(mn3) and space O(mn2). Since the matching problem for semiextended regular expressions (only intersection is added) has been very recently shown to be LOGCFL complete, our algorithms are very likely the best one can expect. We also emphasize the importance of the extended regular expressions for software programs currently using ordinary regular expressions and show how the algorithms presented can be improved to run significantly faster in practical applications.

Research partially supported by NSERC grant R3143A01.

corresponding author

Research partially supported by NSERC grant OGP0041630.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, N6A 5B7, London, Ontario, Canada

    Lucian Ilie, Baozhen Shan & Sheng Yu

Authors
  1. Lucian Ilie
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  2. Baozhen Shan
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  3. Sheng Yu
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Informatik, Freie Universität Berlin, Takusstr. 9, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Helmut Alt

  2. LIRMM, 161, Rue Ada, 34392, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Michel Habib

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ilie, L., Shan, B., Yu, S. (2003). Fast Algorithms for Extended Regular Expression Matching and Searching. In: Alt, H., Habib, M. (eds) STACS 2003. STACS 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2607. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36494-3_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36494-3_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00623-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36494-8

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